If not for the disturbing bit of foreign material embedded in her upper spine, and, now, the gunshot wound that had grounded her for God only knew how long, she’d be gone from this place already. She wasn’t sure how much longer she would be made to stay, but as soon as she was able to walk out of there again, she’d be history. Never mind what the Order thought they needed from her; she had no interest in sticking around to be their guinea pig.

It was still beyond strange to think she was actually sitting there—in a secret, military-grade headquarters populated by a team of vampire warriors and the seemingly sane, perfectly likable women who appeared to be happy and comfortably at home among them.

The surrealism of the whole thing got even stronger when Alex and the rest of the Order’s females—five youthful, stunningly beautiful women and the blond little girl named Mira—filed out of the kitchen with the rest of breakfast. They chatted companionably, as relaxed among one another as if they’d been together all their lives.

They were a family—Alex included, even though she’d just arrived a week ago, along with Jenna.

An easy rhythm settled over the dining room as gold-rimmed plates were passed around and heaped with all manner of delicious things. Crystal juice glasses were filled to their sparkling brims, and delicate, bone china cups soon steamed with fragrant dark roast coffee.

Jenna watched in studious silence as the meal got under way. Warm maple syrup and soft pads of butter made the rounds of the table, stopping for the longest time with little Mira, who soaked her French toast in sticky sweetness and globbed butter onto her biscuit as though it were frosting. Mira wolfed down the biscuit in two big bites, then attacked the rest of her meal with the same unbridled gusto.

Jenna smiled in spite of herself at the child’s ravenous appetite, feeling a pang of melancholy, if not guilt, when she thought about her own daughter. Libby had been such a cautious little girl, self-disciplined and serious, even as a toddler.

God, what she wouldn’t give now to be able to watch Libby enjoying something as simple as breakfast across the table from her.

With sugar-coated fingers, Mira reached for her glass of orange juice and took a big gulp. She sighed contentedly as she set the glass back down with a soft thump. “May I have some whipped cream for my peaches?” she asked, pinning Jenna with her uncanny violet eyes.

For a moment, Jenna felt trapped in that gaze. She shook off the sensation and reached for the china bowl that sat halfway between her own plate and Mira’s across the table.

“May I please have some whipped cream,” Renata corrected from her seat to the right of the little girl. The tough-looking brunette gave Mira a decidedly maternal, affectionate wink as she reached out to intercept the bowl that Jenna passed her.

“May I please,” Mira amended, looking anything but chided.

Jenna sliced into the decadent French toast and popped a bite into her mouth. It was just as Tess had promised—heavenly. She could hardly keep from moaning out loud as she savored the creamy, vanilla taste of it.

“You like?” asked Savannah, who was seated at one end of the long dining room table.

“It’s delicious,” Jenna murmured, her taste buds still vibrating with bliss. She sent a brief, encompassing glance around to everyone gathered there. “Thank you for letting me share all of this with you. I’ve never seen so much food in my life.”

“Did you think we were going to make you starve?” Gabrielle asked from the opposite end of the table. Her smile was friendly, inviting.

“I’m not sure what I thought,” Jenna answered truthfully. “To be honest, I don’t know how to process any of this just yet.”

Gabrielle inclined her head in a slow nod, looking sage and regally serene, even though she was no doubt a few years younger than Jenna’s age of thirty-three. “That’s understandable. You’ve been through a lot, and your situation is unique to us all.”

“My situation,” Jenna said, idly pushing a piece of syrup-soaked bread around her plate. “Meaning the unidentified object that’s lodged at the base of my skull?”

“Yes, that,” Gabrielle acknowledged, a gentle note to her voice. “And the fact that you were fortunate enough to escape the Ancient with your life. The fact that he fed from you and let you live is—”

“Unheard of,” piped in another of the women from her seat next to Gabrielle. She had a mane of fiery red hair, her pretty face dotted with peachy freckles. “If you knew what he was capable of—if you had any idea what’s happened to so many others …” Her voice trailed off, a small shudder making her fingers tremble around the fork she held. “It’s nothing short of a miracle that you’re still alive, Jenna.”

“Dylan’s right,” Tess agreed. “Since roughly a year ago, when the Order first discovered the Ancient had been awakened, we’ve been trying to locate him and Dragos, the son of a bitch responsible for bringing that kind of dangerous being back into the world.”

“I’m not sure which of them is the worse evil,” Renata interjected. “The Ancient has claimed a lot of innocent lives, but it’s Dragos, the Ancient’s sadistic grandson, who’s been pulling all the strings.”

“You mean to tell me that creature has offspring?” Jenna asked, unable to contain her revulsion.

Gabrielle took a sip of her coffee, then carefully set the cup down in its saucer. “That creature and several others like him fathered the entire Breed race on Earth.”

“On Earth?” Jenna barked out a disbelieving laugh. “Are you talking about aliens now? That vampire who attacked me—”

“Was not from this world,” Savannah finished for her. “It’s true. No harder to believe than the existence of vampires themselves, if you ask me, but it’s the God’s honest truth. The Ancients raped and conquered after crash-landing here some thousands of years ago. Over time, a few of their victims became pregnant with what would become the first generation of the Breed.”

“This actually makes sense to all of you?” Jenna asked, still incredulous. She glanced over at Alex beside her. “You believe this, too?”

Alex nodded. “Having come to know Kade and everyone else here at the compound, how could I not believe it? I also saw the Ancient with my own eyes, in the moments before he was killed on a cliff outside Harmony.”

“And what about this other person—Dragos?” Jenna asked, unwillingly curious to make all of the pieces of this astonishing puzzle fit together somehow. “Where does he come in?”

Dylan was the first to answer. “As it turns out, Dragos woke the Ancient much earlier than we had guessed. Decades earlier, in fact. He held him in secret, and used him for creating a whole new generation of Gen Ones—the strongest members of the Breed, being that they are directly descended from the Ancient’s bloodline and not genetically diluted, as the later generations are.”

“Dragos has been breeding a personal army of the most powerful, most deadly members of the race,” Renata added. “They are raised under his watch, trained to be ruthless killers. Dragos’s private assassins whom he can call out at any time to do his bidding.”

Gabrielle nodded. “And in order to create those first-generation offspring, Dragos also needed a stock of fertile women on which to breed the Ancient.”

“Breedmates,” Alex said.

Jenna glanced at her. “And what are they?”

“Women who are born with unique DNA and blood properties that make them capable of sharing a life bond with members of the Breed and bearing their young,” Tess said, her hand idly roaming over the top of her pregnant belly. “Women like all of us gathered around this table right now.”

Shock and horror clenched Jenna’s gut. “Are you saying that I—”

“No,” Tess said, shaking her head. “You’re mortal, not a Breedmate. Your blood work is normal, and you don’t have the mark that the rest of us do.”